Back to the HUSNGs

Back to the HUSNGs

Monday, 21 March 2011 | 1 comment Tweet

Horrendous lack of updates but its just been a boring runbad month, nothing much to write about

So yeah basically I get owned at cash games. I'm down £20k in the fun 5/10 game at DTD which is pretty sigh but at lesat I had fun for my £20k. Thats over about 2000 hands so just a casual -100bb/100. gg boys.

My attempt at cash online went equally badly, running about £3k under EV for the month there too so back I go to the heads up SNGs. Been crushing though for a ~7% ROI over 650ish games with a $170ish average buyin. Had a run at trying to get £5k in rakeback for this month but no dice, was on pace until a few days ago and had a pretty lazy sunday this week so I'll have to settle for less. As usual I managed to miss the weekly heads up on stars but it was the clocks changing in the US putting everything forward an hour that got me this time and not my usual laziness. Congrats to Luke Fields (LFmagic) on coming 3rd. You'll win it some day mate.

Still on pace for a decent volume month though which is good since I've been pretty lazy with it the last 6 months or so. I spent most of that time running pretty decent and its harder to take notice of the lack of volume when the $$ are coming easier. By the end of the month I'm looking at having over 1,000 HUsngs played and 19k hands of cash which I'd be pretty happy with

The Firm is really kicking off now which is pretty fun, definitely breaks up the grind doing a bit of coaching and all of my students seem to be doing well so my small stakes SNG army is coming together nicely!

Heres to a run good April anyway

On The Cash Grind

On The Cash Grind

Tuesday, 1 March 2011 | 1 comment Tweet

I guess we can kick off by saying that my 5/10 bubble has burst, busted iPoker account with standard runbad plus playing short rolled and ended up having to take a trip to DTD in Nottingham at half 11 on a sunday night to recover my life funds that were on deposit there. Nicked £1k playing 1/2 which the way I'm running right now is pretty miraculous.

Pretty much everything online in February has gone terrible besides staking. Backing Luke Fields for heads up PLO on a few euro sites and he's crushing which is just about breaking me even for the month. Pretty tilted that my PTR looks horrible but when you run KK into AA 17 times in a week thats gunna happen when theres only a small sample of cash hands on there. Its pretty well known that PTR doesn't track 100% accurately but its pretty good at picking up the big pots. This should be a good thing for me right now 'cos it shows me as a fish but I still can't get action from breakeven regs on iPoker which is also pretty frustrating.

I'm kinda disolusioned with holdem at the moment but the 5/10 games on ipoker still have some ridiculously good spots in them so i'll be persevering and things should turn around. Live has been going alright, winning a bit playing the £5/10 game in notts once a week and with the lineup there its always a fun game to be in even if its only for the social side.

Hilarious night out for Matt Franklands birthday in Leeds last saturday. Kicked off in an amazing Sushi restaurant in Granary Wharf where the chefs cook your food in front of you on massive hot plates built into the tables. They put on a cool show chucking food about and trying to flick bits of fried egg into peoples mouths. It was the first time I've ever eaten sushi and am definitely a fan. Five of the ten that ate bought out and I managed to bink second at CCR for the buyout money so happy to get paid £200 to eat! After crushing beer pong pretty hard we all ended up in HiFi which was pretty cool not that I remember much. Ended up getting picked up in a hummer and driven to a ropey strip club which apparently is pretty standard in Leeds but doesn't happen in Sheffield. Me and luke sacked off the strip club and ended up going to the Gala to play 1/2 with a few of lukes uni mates. Obv we drop £1k there and end up back at the hotel ridic tilted at 6am but was still a good night out - definitely makes me consider moving to Leeds when my contract in Sheffield runs out.

Loads of non-poker stuff coming up this month, got 4 ice hockey games for Sheffield Uni in March including an epic coach trip from Sheffield to Ayr in Scotland. Theres nothing quite like getting smashed on a coach and needing multiple emergency stops for a piss on the hard shoulder trying to fade the police seeing you.

I'm off home for a few days to just chill and clear my head before getting back on the grind at the weekend after the DTD 300. The 5 year anniversary Sunday Million is coming up so it'd be nice to run good in that, bink a mil and a lambo one time?

Time to crush March - gogogogogo

Dan

UKIPT Nottingham and Moving On From Heads Up SNGs

UKIPT Nottingham and Moving On From Heads Up SNGs

Wednesday, 16 February 2011 | No comment yet Tweet

Its been a while since the last update so lots to talk about; mainly my move away from HU SNGs. Since the big staking result and some good results at 5/10 both live and online I think I've pretty much hit the ceiling of heads up SNGs on iPoker. I'm now comfortably rolled for $500 games but theres just not the traffic to make those games my sole form of income so I'm making the transition to 6max cash. It might seem a bit irrational to not play heads up cash but I think the situation is pretty much the same as in the SNGs. Once you get to 5/10 there really isn't enough action whereas at 6max there is plenty.



UKIPT Nottingham went well despite bricking both the main and the 'high roller' (cringe at that name every time) tournament. Both tournaments pretty much went the same with me being completely card dead for about 9 hours between the two tournaments and then getting coolered to bost both. Gotta love tournaments. Fortunately DTD was rammed so the atmosphere in there was pretty cool and with some London players up in Notts there was plenty of 5/10 cash going. This threw a few tough circuit regs into the games (Devilfish, Ben Vinson, Neil Channing, James Mitchell) but I ran pretty well and ended up taking £5.8k putting me up £3.7k after tournaments and I nicked $1.2k online so a sucessful weekend overall

Playing cash online has thrown up a few tilting issues with Holdem Manager and multiple currencies because I'm playing across Euro, Pound and US Dollar tables but I'll get used to it. I'm running pretty hot over my ridiculously small online sample, winning at 34bb/100 over about 1300 hands. Be sustainable?

Nothing planned poker-wise for the next couple of weeks, just the £300 deepstack at DTD March 4th so gunna be getting my head down and putting in some proper volume online and hopefully setting right my horrible PTR number!

Dan

Keys To The Kingdom - January Roundup

Keys To The Kingdom - January Roundup

Monday, 31 January 2011 | 1 comment Tweet

First of all congrats to James Keys on finishing 2nd in the Aussie Millions Main Event for a cool $1.1m, was pretty disgustingly unlucky not to win it, the other guy held all in with A6 vs QJ on T8x and AQ vs KQhh on Th9hx to stay in it then got it in for pretty much the lot with K4 vs James' 73 on 753K and the guy binks a 4 on the river to win it.

I had 5% so the $55k makes January my biggest month by far and puts me comfortably rolled for the ipoker $500 HUSNGs and 5/10 cash games but I don't plan to be playing that much higher than my usual $220 average buyin simply because the cash is there. I'm pretty comfortable grinding out ~8k/month playing the games I am already. I'll be playing a couple of EPTs which i'll sell pieces for and probably most of the GUKPTs now too so the schedule is looking pretty packed for the next few months.

Results for January were below what I was expecting but then again I don't think that I've played particularly well. Playing too many tables, playing super turbos raked at 5% and playing tired/when I'm not really feeling it is gunna add up to a breakeven month but I hit my volume target so shipped $3865 in bonuses.

Live cash games were definitely the most sucessful arena for me, finished +£3k for the month with a session of 1/2 and two at both 2/5 and 5/10 holdem. I always used to find live holdem cash pretty boring but I've felt like I've had a considerable edge in every session and been running alright so I expect to play a fair amount of live holdem cash this year and hopefully I can keep finding soft games.

Taking is easy for a couple of weeks then heading to UKIPT Nottingham on February 12th for what promises to be an amazing homecoming for James Keys with pretty much everyone on the UK circuit in nottingham that weekend. I don't really expect to remember much!

January:

Games: 1039
HUSNGs +$15
Live cash +£3k
Staking +$55k
Bonuses +$3865
2011 Total: $63,633

The Firm and An Interesting Proposition

The Firm and An Interesting Proposition

Friday, 28 January 2011 | 1 comment Tweet

Those of you that follow Dave Nicholsons blog (lildaveslife.blogspot.com) have probably already heard about The Firm but I've decided to join the site too as a coach for SNGs, anything from heads up to 180mans up to $500 buyins. I should have a few students lined up so looking forward to that since coaching is something that I've wanted to get into more seriously for a while now. All the info about free coaching when you make an account on an affiliate site, staking or buyin a piece of The Firm pros check out www.thefirmpoker.com

Had another 5/10 shot at DTD last weekend which went pretty well finishing +£3.2k for the trip but did most of that getting impatient waiting for games online which got me into sitting super turbos and when you run bad in those you can do a lot of money pretty quick. Haven't really been playing great and I've fallen off the ipoker total profit leaderboard which really sucks but it should motivate me more to get back on there.

The interesting proposition is that Rob Yong (owner of DTD) offered me 3 to 1 on a heads up match for half my roll. Rob doesn't know what that number is so I guess it would be pretty easy to angleshoot and get the match for whatever amount I wanted really within a realistic range given that he's seen me play 5/10 and a number of £1k events. It'd work out about £10k but I'm obv not allowed to sell any or the deal is off. I'm not sure if I'm gunna do it but if the offer still stands I'll probably make a decision at DTD this weekend and it'll be played over the UKIPT Nottingham weekend

Nothing planned on the live poker front until UKIPT Notts on February 11th so just taking it easy back in Sheffield 'till then but possibly apartment hunting for next year but we'll see what happens with that.

Also gl to James Keys at the Aussie Million final table tonight starting in about an hour, I have 5% so win please?

Dan

DTD Deepstack and Shot Taking

DTD Deepstack and Shot Taking

Thursday, 13 January 2011 | 2 comments Tweet

Went to the £336 Deepstack at DTD in Nottingham this weekend with the intention of getting into the 5/10 cash game that runs there over that weekend. From what I've heard its a pretty soft spot so I was looking forward to getting involved. Unfortunately I managed to be first on the list for 2 days and didn't get in 'till Sunday but in the meantime managed to run uf £2.8k playing 2/5. The actual tournament itself went pretty standard, 5 or so levels in I run 99 into QQ vs a button 3bet over a super wide MP opener.

I played the £150 freezeout on the Sunday afternoon and was sat to the right of Willie Tann which was pretty awesome. He's always full of stories from his crazy up and down career which kinda distracted me from the tournament a little bit but its usually a refreshing change to get some old school wisdom. I'm really not one to shun the old school players as much as some of the younger guys so that was a very interesting and very long conversation

Finally got in the 5/10 game which was probably the best game I've ever played in for general table talk and everyone was full of stories about Vegas last summer which makes me wanna go even more now that I'm finally 21. The lineup was way tougher than it was on the friday and saturday but I felt like it was still a decent spot and it was the first time playing in Robbies Room at DTD so it was pretty cool despite dropping £3.3k. I ran and played pretty bad with the highlight being limping KK UTG, fish making it £80 on the button SB calls I make it £310, raiser calls and flatter folds. Flop is a gross AJT and I lead for £375 and got tank called. Turn was a J and I spaz jammed £1.3k and got snapped off by AT.

So I didn't quite get the result I was looking for my first time in that game but I'll definitely be back and the weekend could have gone a lot worse than breaking even after tournament buyins.

GL all

Dan